Trish and I are descended from the youngest, Capt Edward William Kelsall & Susannah Caroline Larkins WALKER.The descendants of Lt Joseph Kelsall & Rachel HICKSON number in the hundreds, although we have not been able to trace down some of the lines, particularly Ireland and USA at this stage.

The origins of Lt Joseph Kelsall have remained a mystery for the last 100+ years. In the pedigree book (compiled & published early 20thC) held at the Society of Genealogists in London, he is listed under "[of] Australia & Ireland" on page 37. The pedigree listed in this book does contain some inaccuracies on the line, and one of the sources of information was Col Joseph KELSALL, the grandson of Joseph & Rachel, as well as two other grandsons. In the notes on the origins of Joseph, several speculations are put forth -

1) "Kelsall", the father of Joseph K who married Rachel Hickson is believed by family tradition to have been a West India Merchant. This is our main line of enquiry at present, and seems to hold potential.

2) Another version is that he is the John K. who was Mayor of Chester 1767 This is disproven, the Mayor of Chester only had one daughter.

3) [scored out:] and possibly the father of .... K, whose Will was proved in 17.. 1788 The entry also mentioned that Joseph had had an argument with his family and ran away and enlisted - this appears to be true.

All the Kelsalls in the British Army (prior to WWI) can be put into two family groups, Joseph KELSALL & Rachel HICKSON, or John KELSALL & Lucretia MOULTRIE , as well as a third line primarily in the HEIC (East India Company) of John KELSALL & Alice MASKELYNE, later Thomas KELSALL and Sarah PHIPPS. All of these lines can be traced back to the mid 18thC, and it is our current hypothesis that all these lines would join in Chester/Cheshire between about 1650-1700, this is also our current line of research.

Joseph KELSALL (c1753-1841) and Rachael HICKSON (c1766-1828)One of the two major "army" Kelsall lines.Descendants in England, Australia, Ireland & Canada